28 November 2014

nocturne

District Line train going east at Three Mills

We have a small history of outings in the dark. The moon has been a spur, like the time we grabbed our toddler son in his PJs and a blanket and drove away eastwards to see a full harvest moon over Hadleigh Castle only to have to abandon a broken down car and take the train home like a family of raggle taggles. This time it was a mist that drew us out . Nothing too spectacular, but enough to envelop and muffle and make you imagine that you're much further away from the Blackwall Tunnel Approach road than you are.

Three Mills at night

Somehow it wouldn't be too surprising if a ghost-horse-drawn something or other rolled over the cobbles.

Round the corner, the canal goes south towards the A11, the Olympic Park and the lights of the new builds.

You can just about see the shadows of construction site cranes topped by the red warning light. The mist somehow transforms the space into something mysterious and subsdued after the clanging daytime hubbub.

Climb up the ramp off the canal and turn right and you're back in the real world. A giant supermarket, a car park, late night shopping.

We wondered whether that might be magically transformed by the mist too. It wasn't, so perhaps we can just pretend for a moment or two that it wasn't there.

Love love love those pictures and the atmosphere you've captured so very well. As a kid, I used to love walking our local streets in foggy weather (which is fortunate as we seemed to get a lot of pea-soupers back then). Hearing 'You can't see a hand in front of you' was my cue to don hat and coat and put it to the test. I remember one night my dad having to stop the car and get out, just to try and see where we were exactly (despite a pair of very impressive fog lamps).

It's the changes a mist makes to how the world sounds that one notices most here where there are few lights to see. And at this time of year, living cheek by jowl with the river, mists are fairly commonplace.